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Nicholas Parsons: With Just a Touch of Hesitation, Repetition and Deviation: My Life in Comedy
Nicholas Parsons enjoyed a long and varied career encompassing theatre, television, film and radio. He was perhaps best known as the straight man to Arthur Haynes in the '60s, as the presenter of Sale of the Century in the '70s and as the chairman of the long-running Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute.
Along the way, he performed impersonations in the lavatories of a Clydebank engineering yard during the war, was the voice of a Gerry Anderson Texan sheriff, roller-skated in Charlie Girl at the Victoria Palace and appeared in a series of Doctor Who. His comedy chat show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival ran for eighteen consecutive years.
In My Life In Comedy, Nicholas recalls an extraordinary career that led him to star on the West End stage, work with some of Britain's finest comedians, including Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Benny Hill and Paul Merton, and appear in stockings and suspenders in The Rocky Horror Show.
Funny, thoughtful and at times moving, Nicholas Parsons: With Just a Touch of Hesitation, Repetition and Deviation celebrates a fascinating life in comedy.
Along the way, he performed impersonations in the lavatories of a Clydebank engineering yard during the war, was the voice of a Gerry Anderson Texan sheriff, roller-skated in Charlie Girl at the Victoria Palace and appeared in a series of Doctor Who. His comedy chat show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival ran for eighteen consecutive years.
In My Life In Comedy, Nicholas recalls an extraordinary career that led him to star on the West End stage, work with some of Britain's finest comedians, including Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Benny Hill and Paul Merton, and appear in stockings and suspenders in The Rocky Horror Show.
Funny, thoughtful and at times moving, Nicholas Parsons: With Just a Touch of Hesitation, Repetition and Deviation celebrates a fascinating life in comedy.
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 19, 1994
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About the author
Nicholas Parsons
86 booksEnglish radio and television presenter and actor; best known today for his long-standing position as host of the comedy radio game show Just a Minute since 1967.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 27, 2015
Probably in common with a lot of people all I really know of Nicholas Parsons is Just A Minute, and Sale of the Century. However following his excellent history of Just a Minute, I decided it would be interesting to try out his autobiography. I am really pleased I did. I was, I will admit, amazed at just how much he has done over the years.
The book follows, in the main, his professional career, barely touching on his private life. The exception to this is his early life. Starting off with his acting as a clown after his first trip to the circus, and then through his school days. Despite his desire to persue a career in show business, he ended up at his parents insistence apprenticing as an engineer in Clydebank. There is something about the idea of Nicholas in Glasgow that rather appeals to me.
Even at this stage though, he was still attempting to break into show business, working in theatres as an actor and comedian. From there returning back south, and with his eventual parents blessing, entertainment turned into his full time profession.
This is where the story really takes off. Going through each stage of his career, stage and screen, both small and large, and of course not forgetting radio. JAM gets a full chapter to itself.
The story is told with the customary wit and good humour you would expect from him. The anecdotes and stories flow out, somehow managing to link disparate stories together, with an ease that doesn't make you realise he's shot off on a tangent. He has, at one time or another, worked with virtually every big name in Britain, and he has the stories to prove it. The wonderful thing about his anecdotes and stories is very rarely does any one come out of them looking bad. There are only a couple of comedians who get criticised, rightly as it turns out. On the whole he is positive and polite about everyone. It would be easy for him to dish dirt, but you get the feeling that really isn't his style. This does make the book very bright and quite uplifting.
This is a fascinating look at his professional life. The joys and the humps. The glory and the pitfalls. I really can't recall the last time I enjoyed an autobiography so much.
The book follows, in the main, his professional career, barely touching on his private life. The exception to this is his early life. Starting off with his acting as a clown after his first trip to the circus, and then through his school days. Despite his desire to persue a career in show business, he ended up at his parents insistence apprenticing as an engineer in Clydebank. There is something about the idea of Nicholas in Glasgow that rather appeals to me.
Even at this stage though, he was still attempting to break into show business, working in theatres as an actor and comedian. From there returning back south, and with his eventual parents blessing, entertainment turned into his full time profession.
This is where the story really takes off. Going through each stage of his career, stage and screen, both small and large, and of course not forgetting radio. JAM gets a full chapter to itself.
The story is told with the customary wit and good humour you would expect from him. The anecdotes and stories flow out, somehow managing to link disparate stories together, with an ease that doesn't make you realise he's shot off on a tangent. He has, at one time or another, worked with virtually every big name in Britain, and he has the stories to prove it. The wonderful thing about his anecdotes and stories is very rarely does any one come out of them looking bad. There are only a couple of comedians who get criticised, rightly as it turns out. On the whole he is positive and polite about everyone. It would be easy for him to dish dirt, but you get the feeling that really isn't his style. This does make the book very bright and quite uplifting.
This is a fascinating look at his professional life. The joys and the humps. The glory and the pitfalls. I really can't recall the last time I enjoyed an autobiography so much.
November 29, 2021
This appears to have been directly written by Parsons, rather than a ghost writer, as one would expect for he was an educated man - for as I was reading I heard his voice, . His early life as an apprentice engineer was hilarious, and this experience in Glasgow stood him in good stead in his future as an entertainer. He sounds a thoroughly nice man. If you are a 'Just a Minute' fan like me, this is a must-read. He is much missed.
November 29, 2023
It's an ok read. Some of it is very funny. However the timeline jumps around like a cricket on a griddle - one chapter he's in the 1990's next thing he's discussing the original meeting with someone he's been working with for several previous chapters. Disappointingly, he covers his appearance in Dr Who in just 3 pages - whichb he makes up for by devoting an entire chapter to The Rocky Horror Show. Not the worst autobiography I've read, but far from the being the best.
May 17, 2019
Very entertaining. I heard the audiobook, and it was facinatingly read.
June 2, 2020
A great collection of anecdotes and musings from the life of a great comedy actor.
March 22, 2022
thoroughly enjoyed his recollections and insights Very readable style and full of anecdotal material
September 28, 2024
A fascinating glimpse into the past by the much-missed Nicholas Parsons.
December 29, 2012
Nicholas Parsons has had a pretty varied career, which he discusses in this memoir, from his early work while working as an apprentice in an engineering company in Glasgow, right up to his recent shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It's a fun memoir, and Parsons rarely has a bad word to say about any of the many personalities that he's worked with over the years. The worst he usually says is that A wasn't quite as imaginative or fun as B.
I mostly know Parsons from his work on Just a Minute and there's a whole chapter devoted to that, how it came about and reminiscences about players, present and past. He's also done a lot of theatre and television work and is at pains to stress the degree of variety in his career, presumably to people who only know him from Just a Minute or Sale of the Century.
An enjoyably light read, that makes me curious to try and catch his Edinburgh Fringe show, but not one if you're looking for salacious showbiz gossip.
I mostly know Parsons from his work on Just a Minute and there's a whole chapter devoted to that, how it came about and reminiscences about players, present and past. He's also done a lot of theatre and television work and is at pains to stress the degree of variety in his career, presumably to people who only know him from Just a Minute or Sale of the Century.
An enjoyably light read, that makes me curious to try and catch his Edinburgh Fringe show, but not one if you're looking for salacious showbiz gossip.
June 28, 2012
I love Nicholas, and this book is briliant. So insightful and interesting.
March 10, 2015
Quite a good read. I loved the part about Just a Minute, one of my favourite shows, and the parts about the Edinburgh Fringe. Overall it was well written and thoroughly enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews